Can A Favourite Win The FedEx Cup?

Jason Logan

Jason Logan

The question is simple: After all the excitement of 2015’s majors — the rise of Jordan Spieth, the redemption of Jason Day, the temptations of Dustin Johnson — do you care what happens the rest of the way? More specifically, do you care about the FedEx Cup Playoffs?

You most likely do. If you care enough to read this blog you most certainly care about golf’s playoffs. But if Brian Harman’s name is on a $10-million cheque when all is said and done in Atlanta in five weeks’ time will you feel fulfilled? At 69th in the regular season FedEx Cup standings, Harman begins the playoffs in the exact same spot as Billy Horschel did last year. What about Paul Casey? He’s 19th as the playoffs begin just as Brandt Snedeker was the year he won the whole shebang in 2012. Rickie Fowler? He’s 15th like eventual winner Bill Haas was in 2011.

Nothing against any of those guys (and, yes, Players champion Fowler would be a popular winner), but what these playoffs have lacked in recent years is a favourite delivering the goods.

Not since Tiger Woods in 2009 has the regular season leader won the playoffs and back then the playoff format was such that Woods could have posted four rounds in the 80s and still come away $10 million richer.

Granted, sporting playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time, but this season, especially this season, anyone but Spieth, Day and, with apologies to Open champion Zach Johnson, perhaps World No. 2 Rory McIlroy as the FedEx Cup champion would seem like a letdown.

Spieth already has the upper hand. McIlroy is skipping this week’s Barclays to rest his injured ankle and news broke Wednesday that Day withdrew from the tournament pro-am after tweaking his back moving an item out from underneath his motorhome. (He said he expects to be fine come Thursday.)

The question is whether Spieth can continue to stay motivated after what has been an historic season, one where he’s played well under pressure in 16 of 16 major championship rounds.

As you’d expect, though, the mature-beyond-his-years and ever-focused Texan says that won’t be a problem.

Recent history suggests the odds are against frontrunners Spieth or Day emerging as the FedEx Cup champion. However they’ve been the best big-event players this year by a wide margin. Neither man will consider the playoffs as important as the four majors, but both know each of the four legs have become big-time tournaments and with the way they’ve performed with the pressure on thus far this year it’ll take an extremely impressive performance to topple them.